First off-grid solar house unveiled in Lagos

LAGOS—THE first off-grid solar house has been unveiled at Ejigbo, in Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, LCDA, of Lagos State.

The five-bedroom bungalow which was built and managed by Concept Technologies has been off the national grid in the last one year.

Managing Director of the company, Tokunbo Tonade, said the idea to build the house was borne out of the need to use alternative means (renewable energy) to tackle the epileptic power supply in the country.

He said: “The home is a five-bedroom bungalow powered by a 12.6KW Solar Off-Grid System that runs 94 per cent on the power of the sun and 6 per cent on diesel during cloudy weather. Off-grid means it has been completely disconnected from electricity distribution companies and has been running without power outage in the last one year.”

“I have been advocating renewable energy because its economic gains. With generators, you spend large amount of money to install it, fuel and service it.

According to him, every year a bank spends N50 million to power each of its branches, in 10 years, it would have spent N500 million to power a branch alone and that’s a huge amount of money. Now, we are designing two-bedroom bungalows so that we can do solar estate. I’ve met with Diamond Bank, and we are looking at ways the bank can take advantage of the solar energy plans,” he said.

Earlier at the unveiling, the Chairmen of Ejigbo and Isolo LCDA, Alhaji Shamsudeen Olaleye and Mr Bello Oloyede respectively, said the initiatve would surely be embraced by the councils in their quest to reduce money spent on powering generating sets.